College students live in an electronic world whose finances are handled by direct deposits, credit cards and online payments, making “real” money seem like a thing of the past. The resulting debt, however, is too real, and according to a new national survey, collegians are deep into a credit-card crisis that could have catastrophic consequences.

The credit crunch and economic downturn have not slowed college students’ use of credit; they’ve accelerated it. More students than ever — about nine in every 10 — rely on credit cards to cover basic school expenses, such as tuition and textbooks.

Average balances are at record levels, according to a study released this month by Sallie Mae, a national provider of financial-management programs and loans for students.

Students with the highest debt levels attend school in Western states, the survey found.

“We were expecting the findings to be pretty bleak,” said Emily Peters, a financial expert at Credit.com and a former credit educator at Trans Union. “We’re seeing things dry up in student-loan financing.”

So dry that nearly a third of the students surveyed said they put tuition on a credit card, a 24 percent jump from the last study, in 2004.

More concerning is that students’ average credit-card balance is $3,173, the highest in the decade the study has been conducted.

About to start her last undergraduate semester in health-care administration, Christianna Kearns of Denver, 33, said she was forced — yet again — to pay her tuition with plastic. She estimates her current college credit-card debt at $15,000.

“I have all the loans . . . and the grants and the tuition reimbursement at work,” the cardiac sonographer said. “There’s just not enough aid left.”

Worse, despite her good credit history, Kearns’ bank reduced her card limit and increased her interest rate from 9.9 percent to 25 percent.

“I can pay the minimum,” she said, “and I’m getting ready for the master’s program.”

The survey also found that about two of every five students charged items knowing they didn’t have the money to pay.

David is a member of the Investigations Team and has been at The Denver Post since 1999. He was a founding member of the team before writing about banking, finance, human services, consumer affairs, and business investigations. He has also worked at newspapers in New York, St. Louis and Detroit over a 35-year career that began at The Post.

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